Opera Software has released the next generation of its mini mobile browser, Opera Mini 3. I gamely attempted to review the free release, interested to see if the new and improved features boasting faster speeds, secure Web page support (for safely accessing eBay and e-mail), and RSS capabilities satisfied the hype. I was also keen to check out content folding, a unique feature that reformats Web pages by heading, using an expandable tree form (more in the full review). Sounds great, right?

I dove in, originally intending to compare Opera Mini 3's performance on a variety of devices. Yet after 11 hours of tweaking, troubleshooting, forum-reading, and rabbit-foot rubbing, I was only able to launch the program on one device: the Palm Treo 700 with a Sprint carrier. And oh, how I worked to arrive at this moment. Opera Mini 3 was locked, loaded, and ready to be taken for a nice, long spin.

Read the full review to see how it stacked up against Opera Mini 2 and Palm's native Web browser. You might be surprised.